‘Sp-sp-sp.’ Pa hunched over in his chair, his face suddenly old and sad.
Clancy hovered uncertainly behind Pa’s shoulder while Tash cupped her hands to peer through a window. ‘Definitely no one here,’ she reported. ‘How cool would it be if we could get inside?’
Suddenly Pa straightened his back. ‘Sp-sp-sp!’ He mimed inserting a key into a lock and opening a door.
‘Yes, but we don’t have the key, Pa,’ said Clancy.
‘Ah!’ Pa tapped the side of his nose, and a mischievous expression lit up his face. ‘Sp-sp-sp!’
‘What, you’ve got a key?’ said Tash. ‘In your pocket?’
‘Pfft!’ Don’t be silly. Pa gestured for Clancy to push him to the side of the house.
‘I can’t take you down that path, Pa. It’s too steep,’ said Clancy in alarm. ‘We’d crash!’
Pa gave an exaggerated, exasperated sigh, and jabbed his finger in the same direction.
‘Down there?’ said Tash. ‘Something around there? The back door? The deck?’
‘Under the house?’ guessed Clancy, and Pa swung round in excitement.
‘Yes!’ He mimed opening a door, and groping above his head. He held up a small invisible object. ‘Aha!’
Without another word, Tash leapt down the path by the side of the house. Clancy heard a bang as her sister threw open the little door and vanished inside, then some muffled swearing.
‘Sp-sp-sp!’ Pa urged Clancy.
‘You think I should go and help her?’ Clancy hung back. She’d always been scared of the dark, dank, creepy cavity beneath the house. ‘I think someone should stay here with you.’
‘Pfft!’ Pa reached down and firmly applied his brake. ‘Sp-sp!’ He waved her on her way, and reluctantly Clancy edged down the path. She reached the door just in time to meet Tash as she emerged, brushing cobwebs from her hair.
‘So many, many spiders,’ announced Tash. ‘And I can’t find it.’
‘Didn’t Pa say it was above the door?’
‘You have a look.’
Clancy hung back. ‘But – spiders!’
Tash groaned theatrically and disappeared back under the house. There was more swearing, less muffled this time, and then a howl of triumph. ‘Got it!’
Tash sprinted up the path, brandishing an old, dirt-encrusted brass key attached to a miniature model of the Eiffel Tower. ‘Is this it, Pa?’
Pa examined the key and the key ring. ‘Yes.’
‘Wow,’ said Clancy. ‘How many years has that been there?’
Pa held up five fingers, flashed five again, five again, looked slightly lost, and shrugged.
‘A long time, anyway,’ said Clancy.
‘Moment of truth. Are you excited?’ Tash wiggled the key into the front door lock, paused for dramatic effect, and grinned at Pa. ‘It’s open!’
‘Tash, do you think we should …?’ began Clancy nervously, but Tash talked over her.
‘Hey, we could stay here for dinner! We could get pizza delivered!’
There was a short pause. Clancy said cautiously, ‘If we did get pizza – hypothetically – would we have enough money for the taxi back?’
‘Sure,’ said Tash after a moment. ‘I think so.’
‘I don’t think we would,’ said Clancy.
The sisters stared at each other.
‘Sp-sp-sp?’ said Pa.
‘Oh, nothing. It’s just Clancy always has to ruin everything,’ said Tash bitterly. ‘Because she’s a ruiner.’
‘Sp-sp?’
‘She thinks we’re going to run out of cash!’
As if that was a totally ridiculous idea, instead of a rational, reasonable thing to worry about, thought Clancy crossly.
Pa gave a sudden gasp, as if he’d had an electric shock. ‘Hah!’ He jabbed his finger urgently back at the side of the house. ‘Sp-sp-sp!’
‘What?’ Tash frowned. ‘You don’t want to go inside? You want to go round the back?’
Pa shook his head impatiently. ‘Yeah – no!’
‘Do you need the toilet again?’ asked Clancy.
‘There’s something else under the house?’ guessed Tash. ‘A secret tunnel? A trapdoor?’
‘Pfft!’ Pa held up his finger. He mimed pushing his way through a jungle, or a curtain, peering into darkness, then grasping something in his hand. ‘Aha!’
‘But I found the key already.’ Tash pushed the front door open and sighed. ‘I’ll go and look. Clancy, ruiner, you take Pa inside.’
‘But Tash, are you sure we’re allowed? Is this legal?’
Furiously Tash grabbed the wheelchair handles. ‘Okay, I’ll take Pa in, and you go and look.’
‘Tash, don’t be mean!’ wailed Clancy, as if she and Tash were still six and eight, instead of twelve (about to start high school) and fourteen (playing in a football team with adult women, and able to learn to drive next year). But Tash had already trundled Pa inside.
She can’t make me.
But somehow, an ancient force of obedience to her older sister drove Clancy down the path to the little wooden door. The dugout under the house was like a cave, where Pa had kept his chainsaw and ladders; but the tenants had asked Polly for a proper garden shed instead. Maybe they didn’t like spiders either. Shuddering, her hands held out protectively in front of her, Clancy shuffled into the darkness.
She stood there, blinking, while her eyes adjusted. Tiny stars of light shone through the ventilation grilles, and soon Clancy found that she could see veils of cobwebs strung across the low-roofed cavity.
‘I’m not going any further in!’ she said aloud.
Stepping back, she heard a crunch and her heart jumped as her foot came down on something – a snake? A rat trap? No, it was just a long stick. Instinctively she picked it up like a sword and slashed it back and forth until most of the cobwebs were gone. Tash had had it easy, with the key above the door. Whatever the other thing was that Pa wanted, it was obviously hidden right at the back of the dugout. Maybe it was even buried. How would she ever find it?
A sudden memory returned to Clancy, from when she was very little. She remembered coming down here with Nan, and her grandmother holding her hand. The dark is nothing to be scared of, Nan had said; without the dark, we wouldn’t have the stars. And with Nan’s hand gripping hers, Clancy hadn’t been quite so scared to go under the house.
The memory was so vivid that Clancy even caught a whiff of the lily-of-the-valley perfume that Nan had always worn, as if her grandmother were standing right beside her.
‘Nan?’ whispered Clancy. She inched forward, her sword-stick raised in front of her. The ladders and boxes and chainsaws Pa had stored down here had been cleared out before the house was rented. Polly had probably already found whatever it was Pa had hidden … although she hadn’t discovered that spare key.
Come on, Clancy. Nothing to be scared of.
Narrow rods of sunlight poked through the grilles as she edged forward. Was that something moving in the shadows? Clancy whirled around, but the space was empty – there was nowhere to hide. She crept right up to the earth wall at the very back of the dugout and touched it with her fingertips. And there was the scent of lily-of-the-valley again, just for a split second, stronger this time in the stale air.